Bahai News - Praying helps you take the right decisions in life
Thursday 11 May 2000

'Praying helps you take the right decisions in life'

MUMBAI: ``To know God you must cultivate contact with him, you must make
him real in your daily life.. and prayer is one way of communicating
with him,'' writes Dada J.P. Vaswani in his book Around the Camp
Fire.

It is said that the greatest power that God has given to any individual
is the power of prayer. Praying might seem to be a practice pursued only
by the spiritually inclined or those in need of help. But it is observed
that a few minutes spent in the service of God every day has positive
effects on a person's attitude and thinking also. As the saying goes,
``One who kneels the most, stands the best.''

People tend to pray in difficult times and seek solutions from God when
they have lost hope. As Abraham Lincoln once said, ``I have been driven
many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had
absolutely no other place to go.'' While prayers are known to help
people, spiritual teachers have also explained that once praying becomes
a practice, it enhances a person's ability to face trying circumstances
in life.

The underlying message being that praying helps an individual believe in
God and thus in his or her own strength and ability. It is not the long
hours spent in praying that gives solutions to people's problems, but
their belief in God and in themselves.

It is also important to ensure that praying is not a mere lip service,
but a service of the heart. For instance, the Jews consider praying as
an opportunity to connect the heart and the soul with God. Prayer is
verily a dialogue with God, more importantly with oneself where an
individual bares his or her thoughts with no apprehension of being
judged or condemned. In his writings on the Bahai faith, Bahai'u'llah
has observed that praying helps a person take the right decisions in
life.

Moreover, there is no place or time that is inappropriate for praying.
Silent prayers can be offered even in a busy schedule. It is said, ``We
need not wait for an opportunity to kneel before God. We can pray and
talk with the Lord wherever we may be.'' -- Roli Srivastava